UX for systems of connected products Claire Rowland / @clurr UX Day, 2016 Image: Jacopo Werther
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UX for systems of connected products
Claire Rowland / @clurr
UX Day, 2016
Image: Jacopo Werther
•Product/UX strategy consultant
•Specialising in IoT, particularly connected home/energy management
•Lead author of Designing Connected Products
Hello…
Who here…
• Works on software products/services?
• Works on products/services with a physical/hardware component?
• Owns some connected products or uses them in everyday life?
• Would like to work on connected products?
My grandfather could probably have told you how many electric motors he owned. There was one in the car, one in the fridge, one in his drill and so on.
My father, when I was a child, might have struggled to list all the motors he owned (how many, exactly, are in a car?) but could have told you how many devices were in the house that had a chip in.
Today, I have no idea how many devices I own with a chip, but I could tell you how many have a network connection. And I doubt my children will know that, in their turn.
Benedict Evanshttp://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/5/26/the-internet-of-things
Images: Emmett Tullos, Bigbelly, Smart Structures,Wikicommons, PowerOasis, OnFarm, GROUND Lab
Industrial
Consumer
Images: Withings, Made by Many, ecobee, Pod, Philips, Streetline, Evrythng/Diageo, Lockitron, Proteus
Shiny visions of the future…
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/heck-internet-things-dont-yet/
…but the reality is often new ways to fail
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/heck-internet-things-dont-yet/
‘It’s a bit glitchy but it’s OK, you just have to be in the room at the same time’. Actual review of the Wink hub
Images: Owlet, August, InTouch, Tesla
…and “a bit glitchy” could have very serious consequences
When we talk about design for IoT…
We often focus on industrial and UI design
Designing the parts separately won’t result in a great experience
Designers need to create a coherent UX for the whole systemCross-Platform Service User Experience: A Field Study and an Initial Framework. Minna Wäljas, Katarina Segerståhl, & colleagues, MobileHCI’10: http://bugi.oulu.fi/~ksegerst/publications/p219-waljas.pdf
Screen layout. Look and feelMost
visible
Least visible
Conceptual modelHow should users think about
the system?
InterusabilityInteractions spanning multiple
devices with different capabilities
UI/visual design
Platform designTechnology enablers spanning
products/services
Industrial designPhysical hardware: capabilities and
form factor
Interaction designArchitecture and behaviours per
service, per device
Service designHolistic experience across digital
and non-digital touchpoints
ProductisationAudience, proposition, objectives, functionality of a specific service
Facets of IoT UX
Screen layout. Look and feelMost
visible
Least visible
Conceptual modelHow should users think about
the system?
InterusabilityInteractions spanning multiple
devices with different capabilities
UI/visual design
Platform designTechnology enablers spanning
products/services
Industrial designPhysical hardware: capabilities and
form factor
Interaction designArchitecture and behaviours per
service, per device
Service designHolistic experience across digital
and non-digital touchpoints
ProductisationAudience, proposition, objectives, functionality of a specific service
Facets of IoT UX
Which bit does what?Composition: distributing user-facing functionality across devices
(Nearly) all interactions via phone app
Interactions mirrored on phone and thermostat
Image: Tado Image: ecobee
How do the devices connect? Apparently similar products can work in different ways
System architecture affects UX
Appropriate consistency across UIs? Terminology is the most basic example.
However different the UIs, identical functions must have the same name
Images: British Gas
How can devices/UIs feel like a family?
Images: Nest
“Click”
Nest use visual and audio cues to tie the thermostat and phone app together
We don’t (yet) expect Things to behave like the Internet
The average consumer is going to find it very strange when objects take time to respond, or lose instructions
Image: Nissim Farim
Latency and reliability
[Video: Philips Hue over local WiFi vs 4G connection]
Intermittent connectivity
Images: British Gas
90 second delay
Sometimes parts of the system take time to connect and sync
Delays and glitches can undermine the value of the product
…………………………..
“Oh, never mind”
[ding dong]
Nicolas Calderone via macsources.com
We can no longer sustainthe illusion of direct manipulation
We can’t always create seamless user experiences in IoT
We need to handle delays and uncertainties gracefully
Option 1: The optimistic white lie
Pretend it’s worked.
Backpedal if it goes wrong.
Images: Philips
Instagram does this
The photo is already shown as ‘liked’, even though the phone OS tells us that the instruction is still being sent
So does Hue…
Let me think about that… nope
Option 2: Be truthful and transparent
Acknowledge action. Confirm only once it’s done. Useful if the user must never be in any doubt about what is happening
Some people really spell it out…
Images: Lowes
Safety critical/urgent
Messages must get through quickly
Always communicate what’s actually happening
Low touch/non-critical
OK if data or instructions take time to get through
User can assume it’s working until notified of a problem
The ‘right’ approach depends on context
Images: MyLively, Efergy
It’s about interconnections, and the experience of the system
Images: MyLively, Efergy
Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity:
As you make the user interaction simpler you make things more complicated for the designer or engineer
Larry Tesler, former VP of Apple
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